CHAPTER 01 YEAR 25, MONTH 01 NARRATOR: FIREBIRD Some of you ain't lived through anarchy so let me tell you what it's like. Anarchy isn't the absence of order. It's the absence of government. Throughout most of human history there was no government so anarchy is our natural state. With anarchy you have some disorder but you also have something called spontaneous order. Spontaneous order happens cuz people don't wanna fight if they can avoid it. Von Mises said if the tailor kills the baker now the tailor's gotta learn how to bake bread. The gunfight at the OK Corral was big news in its day cuz most of the time all them cunts with guns on their hips got along just fine. Peace without government. You gotta try not to piss people off. I'll fight when cornered but my superpower has always been running away. Run away so you can live to run away another day. Conflict resolution keeps you alive and not kicking. Not causing offense is the best defense. It don't matter if you're king or president. No matter how tough you are there's always somebody tougher. No matter how big you are there's always somebody bigger. If you bring a knife they'll bring a gun. If you bring a gun they'll bring a bomb. If you bring a bomb they'll lay in wait and pick you off with a rifle. If you lay in wait for them you'll puke and die cuz they poisoned your brekkie. If your servants died tasting your brekkie for you you'll open the door and find an angry mob outside. If you've disarmed the angry mob they'll keep coming for you until you run out of bullets. Like I said. You gotta try not to piss people off. Anarchy and government aren't as different as you might think. Government is whatever gang has the biggest pile of guns. When people take the big pile of guns away from one gang and give it to another gang they call that an election. When the gang in charge grabs your money they call that taxes. A border is nothing but a line in the sand you're capable of defending. As for laws? Good people don't need them and bad people don't follow them. Ammon Hennacy said that. Or maybe it was Playdoh. They're both dead so who gives a fuck. Firebird said it. You probably think we eat dog food out of fifty year old cans and bugs off the ground. Sometimes. But ask yourself where does your water come from? Where does your electricity come from? Where does your petrol come from? You don't know. You don't know cuz you don't need to know. It don't come from communism. It don't come from socialism. It don't come from capitalism. That shit comes from anarchy. Someone wants your money so they get the shit you need and they deliver it to you. We still got that here. That ain't never going away. We got food and petrol and electricity and all that shit. Everything is just expensive as fuck. The world will never run out of anything. I can guarantee it. Take oil. If we ever start to run out of oil the cunts that sell it will raise the price until people stop paying it. People will put electric motors in their cars and charge them up with windmills. No one will wanna pay for that oil anymore and we'll leave it in the ground. There will be local shortages but shortages have nothing to do with the world running out of something. A shortage just means that thing you want is real far away and real hard to get. Pay somecunt enough and they'll get it for you. High prices won't stay high forever. High prices are like someone shouting into a megaphone that selling that thing is a good business to get into. Clever cunts hear the message and get into that business. Competition increases and prices come down. Paul Ehrlich predicted that overpopulation would drain the world of its resources so Julian Simon bet him a thousand bucks that any five resources he chose would be cheaper ten years later. Simon would have won that bet if it hadn't been for the Big Bang. I'm certain of it. Throughout human history if you were to bet on a long enough timescale that things would get better you'd be right every time. Even now. Even after the Big Bang. You'd still be right. We're rebuilding the world. We just need a slightly longer timescale. We have radios but you're lucky if you can find a station. We have TVs but there ain't nothing on. We don't have movies. I miss movies. We got walkie talkies and generators but we don't have phone lines or power lines cuz them wires don't stay up for long. We got guns but not much ammo. Motherfuckers carry around broken guns or fake guns. They mount them on their cars. We don't go to school but if you think that means we don't learn nothing then let me learn you something. We learn what we need to learn and we learn what we want to learn. I started learning the moment I stopped going to school. No we don't barter all the time. Sometimes. Money still works. People use money cuz it's convenient. Not cuz a government says it's worth anything. But with no more currency being produced and everyone being poor we got deflation instead of inflation. Bills crumpled to dust and coins went up in value. It takes all day to earn a twenty cent piece but a twenty cent piece buys you a hot meal. People sometimes use foreign coins or coins out of their antique coin collections or ball bearings or bottlecaps. Anything small and valuable. But just cuz you think something is valuable that don't mean someone else will. So shit like bottlecaps don't always work. Money stored on plastic cards is all gone but I bet somecunt out there is working on reinventing that shit right now. And if they don't maybe I will. Another question you might have is why don't everyone just steal shit from each other. You can do that but it's rude and it's dangerous. You own whatever you can defend. Clever cunts like me don't need to grab shit. We think of ways to give you what you need for a price. I'm a maker not a taker. I might be an asshole sometimes too but I am making the world spin. There is one rule you have to live by whether you got anarchy or communism or capitalism or whatever. This rule probably even works in other galaxies. Fuck that Star Trek Prime Directive shit. This is better than that. This rule will make you happy. This rule will make you a good person. This rule will make you money. This rule will make you friends. This rule will keep you alive. This rule ain't the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule says do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. But other people might need something different from what you need. This rule ain't the Platinum Rule. The Platinum Rule is an improvement upon the Golden Rule where you try to do unto others as they would have you to do unto them. Treat others how they want to be treated. That's a good rule too but I can do you one better. I call my rule the Goddamn Tippitytop Best Rule: CREATE VALUE Create value for yourself. That's happiness. Create value for people who don't pay you. That's kindness. Create value for people who do pay you. That's work. Create value for people you like. That's friendship. Create value for people you don't like. That's self preservation. I'm not saying this rule is easy to live by. It's impossible to create value for everyone all the time. And you wouldn't want to. You gotta figure out when to create value and who to create it for. You gotta figure out when to charge for it and when not to. Some people won't appreciate it. Some people don't deserve it. Some people are just worth pissing off. And it's hard to figure out what people will value. All value judgements are subjective. Most people don't know what they need so they won't be able to tell you. Henry Ford said people thought they needed faster horses when what they really needed was Ford Mustangs. People threw money at the guy. Ain't nothing wrong with that. The value I created for people usually involved helping them build things or fix things or transport things. Sometimes that meant I was delivering something or standing guard or wrenching underneath a car but that was only if the money was good enough. Usually I was more of a manager. I managed large projects for clients with deep pockets. You probably think that means gangsters or something. Yeah I'd work for them sometimes but I preferred to work for cunts like me who were rebuilding the world and making money doing it. I'd make or fix or move whatever they needed as long as the rewards were worth the risk. In my spare time I worked on developing a prototype computer. I knew computers were gonna be big money someday. Tandy sold a year's supply of TRS80s in the first two goddamn weeks. Some of the old computers still worked but it was getting expensive to buy and fix and maintain them. I knew I'd make heaps of money if I offered people brand new shit that was cheaper and would last longer. We all knew what needed to be rebuilt. The prewars remembered. The postwars had heard the stories. We had it all once. We could have it all again. All we needed was for the assholes to fuck off and let us clever cunts do our thing. My computer was about the size of a refrigerator. It shared the garage with the Firebird. It was already working great but I needed to make it smaller. I still had my old copy of Byte magazine with the IBM PC on the cover. I figured once my computers were smaller than that I'd start selling them. It's not like I was trying to turn sand into silicon. You could still buy resistors and capacitors and shit. You could even have circuit boards and integrated circuits made. It just took time and money and knowing the right people. One day when I was soldering a board for my computer I took a break and flipped on the radio. They were playing Crawl Out Through The Fallout by Sheldon Allman. Yeah that's a real song. It came out in 1960. In What's Left O'Sydney we only had one radio station but the music was fucking great. An ad came on for a company called Exotic Travels. I'd referred clients to them before. They had a great reputation for getting you where you wanted to go. Anywhere in the world. Once you're there you're on your own. But they'd get you there. You might be wondering how do we cross oceans. Boats motherfucker. It's dangerous and expensive and it takes forever but we do it. Some propeller planes are still working but they're not in good enough shape to be crossing any oceans. Maybe someday somecunt will get one of them big jet planes flying again. Anyway the ad said the USA was a green place where everything was better so everyone should go. I'd been wanting to get back to my childhood home ever since the Big Bang. Not cuz I was sentimental. I wanted to get back there cuz there was a heap of silver bars locked in my parents' safe and I was the only person left on earth who knew the combination. With a pile of silver that big I'd have enough money to set up a factory and go into business selling my computers. I counted up all my money. It was just enough for a ticket to the USA. I dumped it all into a big fucking box. I put the box in the passenger seat of my badass car and headed to Exotic Travels. Exotic Travels was six hours west of O'Sydney. It's scary driving around with such a big heap of shrapnel on you but it's usually ok as long as nobody knows what you got. Problem is people know that if you're gonna buy a ticket across an ocean you must have something of value to buy it with. So there's a "police" roadblock out by Exotic Travels. They ain't real police. But your police ain't real police neither. Police are just assholes with guns. Anyway you can pull up and pay their toll but the toll is so much that if I paid it I wouldn't be able to afford my ticket. You're probably hoping that this is where the action begins. But action ain't my goal. Shouldn't be your goal neither. If I'd been an out of controller rock 'n' roller who craved action my story would have been over a long time ago. I just wanted to be left alone. And to make it back to the USA. And fix up my car. And find a girlfriend or two. Ok maybe I did want a few things and maybe it was gonna take some action to get them but I sure as hell wasn't looking forward to it. I paid some motherfucker to go through the roadblock and distract the assholes while I drove around. They caught him and sliced him up. Good thing I only paid half in advance. I made it to Exotic Travels. This place had a wall around it with snipers and shit. These cunts had money. If you have something of value you have to hide it or defend it. Especially if you settle down in one place. They made me show them my box of shrapnel and then they let me in. I dragged my big heavy box into the building. There was a big sign that said no refunds. I dumped my life savings onto the counter. I made it clear to the cunt in charge that this ticket was for me and my car. I was gonna leave my computer behind but I was not gonna leave my Firebird. I could make another computer but they were never gonna make another Trans Am. The cunt gave me my ticket. "No refunds" he said. "Yeah I got that." "Boat leaves on time with or without you." "Fine." "If it's up to us we'll keep your money and leave without you." "Got it asshole." He pointed out the window to a weird looking young guy. He told me the kid was a messenger who'd come find me in a few weeks and he'd let me know when and where the boat would show up. On the way out I asked a bogan if he knew a way through the roadblock. "Pay the toll" he said. "I don't have any money" I explained. "You're gonna die." Messenger Kid was getting into an old Volkswagen Beetle. I tried to stop him and ask him how he got through the roadblock but he ignored me. He started up the bug and took off. I figured he must have some trick so I followed him. On the way out to the roadblock he came upon a mystery girl on the side of the road hitchhiking. He stopped to let her in. Rather than sitting up in the seat she curled up and hid. The roadblock was two blokes and two cars. There was an old geezer with a mohawk sitting in a buggy and a fake cop standing beside a fake cop car. They looked sweaty and bored from having to stand around being assholes all day. Fake Cop was trying to act like a real cop. Old Geezer was reading a book. How the fuck should I know what book he was reading? I can only assume it was How To Win Friends And Influence People. When Messenger Kid got there they just waved him by. Some trick. Exotic Travels and the roadblockers were in cahoots. Or the roadblockers just knew better than to mess with the cunts who were bringing in the money. Exotic Travels wasn't gonna let me back in without any money and I was almost out of petrol so I said fuck it. I take pride in using my brain to solve shit like this but I didn't have time to come up with some big plan. So yeah it's time for some action. I hope you motherfuckers enjoy it. You think I survived to tell this fucking story but for all you know I'm paralyzed from the neck down or maybe I'm some kind of ghost. Let's find out. You can drive around their roadblock and yeah I was gonna have to do that. But it slows you down and it's real risky. If you get a flat it's all over. I drove at them real fucking fast and veered around them into the dirt. The shocks were topping out and everything was shaking like crazy but the Firebird held together. Old Geezer couldn't get his shitty buggy started. As I drove by I got a real good look at him and he got a real good look at me. "Little Shit! That's my car!" he shouted. Old Geezer was Mohawk Asshole. I reminded him at the top of my lungs that "Attachment leads to suffering!" Decades later and he's still hung up on that car. I had that car longer than he ever did. The universe clearly wanted it to be mine. I got back on the road and kicked it in the guts. Fake Cop got his fake cop car started but he was slow getting that thing turned around so that bought me some time. He turned on his fake sirens and came after me. Then cuz life can never be simple I started catching up to Messenger Kid and Mystery Girl in the Beetle. I tried to pass them but Mystery Girl was freaking out assuming that even though we'd never met my one purpose in life was to fuck with her. She leaned out the window and pointed a shotgun at me so I hit the brakes. She yelled something like "Lick my prickly flaps!" I tried to get around them on the driver's side so she couldn't shoot me. Messenger Kid cut me off but then he went off the road and got the Beetle stuck. I laughed as I blew by them. "Suck my star spangled ding dong" I yelled. Just then the tank ran dry. I coasted to a stop and got out. Messenger Kid and Mystery Girl were out of their car too. Messenger Kid had a Bugs Bunny doll in his hand. He pulled a string on the doll and it said "Now take it easy!" Then he and Bugs bugged out back in the direction of Exotic Travels. Mystery Girl was strutting up the road toward me. I couldn't help but notice she was real good looking especially walking that way and carrying that big gun. Or was it a gun? No it was not. I foolishly pointed that out to her. "That's not a gun" I said. "Nah mate it's a steel pipe." She hit me in the face with the not gun. I fell over and she jumped on me and started punching me. I'd never been punched by such a pretty girl before. She was real dirty but she smelled great. I tried to tell her there was an asshole chasing us and we needed to stop fighting and start hiding but it was hard to talk when she was punching me so hard. "Your nads are gonna be my coin purse" she said. I would have laughed but she said it so coldly and methodically. Then we heard the fake sirens as the fake cop car came over the horizon. She ran and hid and left me there on the ground with blood shooting out of my eyeballs. I heard the cop car come to a stop right by my feet. The engine shut off. The door opened. Footsteps. Fuck. I felt Fake Cop's boot press against my throat. Then I heard Mystery Girl yell "Kiss my dirt button!" There was a scuffle. Then a cracking sound as Mystery Girl's steel pipe crunched Fake Cop's dumb old skull. She's pretty great when she's not punching you. She helped me up and gave me a hankie to wipe the blood off my face. She introduced herself. "I'm Mad Skelli." "Firebird." "Sorry I thought you were a friend of my ex." "Who's your ex?" "The dead guy." "When did you break up?" "Just now." "Where you headed to?" "Not headed to" she said. "Headed away." I noticed that her ex boyfriend now ex person had on a badass cowboy hat. I grabbed it and put it on.